From WSJ today:
Jimmy Lai’s trial on national-security charges began Monday in Hong Kong under a heavy police presence. You’d think he was the leader of Hamas rather than a former newspaper owner. But in the three years that he’s spent waiting for his day in court, the trial has become something the authorities never anticipated: a global stage for Jimmy’s witness for freedom.
This witness includes his stand for free speech, as he watched an alleged world finance center seize his publication, Apple Daily, without a court order or judgment. It includes his role as a champion for the economic liberty that turned Hong Kong into the most prosperous Chinese society the world has known. And it includes his argument that Hong Kong’s people are as worthy of democracy as any.
But there’s one more witness that animates everything he does: his Christian faith. Jimmy wasn’t jailed because his faith was against the law. But he freely accepted handcuffs and prison bars because of his faith.
Jimmy wasn’t always a believer. But in 1997, a week after Hong Kong was handed back to China, he was received into the Catholic Church. He was baptized by his good friend Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has himself been arrested by the government—and was in court Monday to show support. I am Jimmy’s godfather.
Since Jimmy’s arrest, Cardinal Zen has visited him as often as he can. It isn’t well known, but several of those jailed in Hong Kong for pro-democracy activities have been baptized.
These days Jimmy spends much of his time cultivating his new vocation as a Christian artist. He’s pretty good, too, even limited to drawing in pencil on regular, lined paper. Over time the authorities came to see this as a threat and so no longer allow him to share his prison artwork with visitors and correspondents.
Most of all, Jimmy is blessed to have a wife, Teresa, every bit as strong as he is. Teresa told Jimmy when he was arrested that she knew that moment might come the day she married him. Her message: Jimmy, I am your wife, and I will walk this journey with you every step of the way. But you must pick up your cross and embrace it.
The amazing thing is that this proud man has done just that. In an extraordinary podcast he did with former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky in November 2020—a month before his arrest—Jimmy was clearly steeling himself for his own imprisonment. He observed that Mr. Sharansky drew strength for his resistance from two blessings the men share: a religious faith and the unbendable love of a good woman.
They discussed how important it is never to back down and to live as a free man even in prison by rejecting the lies the government pushes. Mr. Sharansky wished Jimmy “strength and will” in the trials ahead. He advised him to regard the burden laid on him as a blessing:
“And if you were chosen by the faith, by God, by your people to lead, to be the example of this moment, it’s a great responsibility but it’s also a great joy. So enjoy it!”
Nobody enjoys prison, not Jimmy and not his wife and children. But Mr. Sharansky was on to something. Witness without cost is virtue signaling. Jimmy’s wife and children, by contrast, see their family being redeemed by suffering, even if the world doesn’t understand.
Many don’t. Some friends and acquaintances are baffled that a man worth hundreds of millions, who might have fled to one of his homes in Tokyo or Paris, would exchange that life of comfort for solitary confinement in a prison cell. Many former associates have abandoned him.
Yet through all this Jimmy radiates a peace that, for all his riches, he never had before. He has written that Stanley Prison isn’t so bad because the British built it and the Chinese haven’t got around to screwing it up yet. And he has one message for those who have turned on him: Forgiveness.
On the day of Jimmy’s baptism more than 25 years ago, I confess I looked at him and wondered how much he really believed. There were so many social reasons for him to convert. Many of his friends were Catholic. Even as a nonbeliever, he admired religions for the good they contributed to society. And his wife, a cradle Catholic, was thrilled by his conversion. Today I am ashamed of those doubts.
With this trial Jimmy will finally get his opportunity to speak. He would leave prison in a heartbeat and go home to his loving wife and children if he could. But not at the cost of truth.
The Good Book tells us that love endures all things. Which creates a dilemma for China and Hong Kong with this trial: The more suffering they inflict, the more powerful Jimmy Lai’s witness grows.
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
Jimmy Lai’s trial on national-security charges began Monday in Hong Kong under a heavy police presence. You’d think he was the leader of Hamas rather than a former newspaper owner. But in the three years that he’s spent waiting for his day in court, the trial has become something the authorities never anticipated: a global stage for Jimmy’s witness for freedom.
This witness includes his stand for free speech, as he watched an alleged world finance center seize his publication, Apple Daily, without a court order or judgment. It includes his role as a champion for the economic liberty that turned Hong Kong into the most prosperous Chinese society the world has known. And it includes his argument that Hong Kong’s people are as worthy of democracy as any.
But there’s one more witness that animates everything he does: his Christian faith. Jimmy wasn’t jailed because his faith was against the law. But he freely accepted handcuffs and prison bars because of his faith.
Jimmy wasn’t always a believer. But in 1997, a week after Hong Kong was handed back to China, he was received into the Catholic Church. He was baptized by his good friend Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has himself been arrested by the government—and was in court Monday to show support. I am Jimmy’s godfather.
Since Jimmy’s arrest, Cardinal Zen has visited him as often as he can. It isn’t well known, but several of those jailed in Hong Kong for pro-democracy activities have been baptized.
These days Jimmy spends much of his time cultivating his new vocation as a Christian artist. He’s pretty good, too, even limited to drawing in pencil on regular, lined paper. Over time the authorities came to see this as a threat and so no longer allow him to share his prison artwork with visitors and correspondents.
Most of all, Jimmy is blessed to have a wife, Teresa, every bit as strong as he is. Teresa told Jimmy when he was arrested that she knew that moment might come the day she married him. Her message: Jimmy, I am your wife, and I will walk this journey with you every step of the way. But you must pick up your cross and embrace it.
The amazing thing is that this proud man has done just that. In an extraordinary podcast he did with former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky in November 2020—a month before his arrest—Jimmy was clearly steeling himself for his own imprisonment. He observed that Mr. Sharansky drew strength for his resistance from two blessings the men share: a religious faith and the unbendable love of a good woman.
They discussed how important it is never to back down and to live as a free man even in prison by rejecting the lies the government pushes. Mr. Sharansky wished Jimmy “strength and will” in the trials ahead. He advised him to regard the burden laid on him as a blessing:
“And if you were chosen by the faith, by God, by your people to lead, to be the example of this moment, it’s a great responsibility but it’s also a great joy. So enjoy it!”
Nobody enjoys prison, not Jimmy and not his wife and children. But Mr. Sharansky was on to something. Witness without cost is virtue signaling. Jimmy’s wife and children, by contrast, see their family being redeemed by suffering, even if the world doesn’t understand.
Many don’t. Some friends and acquaintances are baffled that a man worth hundreds of millions, who might have fled to one of his homes in Tokyo or Paris, would exchange that life of comfort for solitary confinement in a prison cell. Many former associates have abandoned him.
Yet through all this Jimmy radiates a peace that, for all his riches, he never had before. He has written that Stanley Prison isn’t so bad because the British built it and the Chinese haven’t got around to screwing it up yet. And he has one message for those who have turned on him: Forgiveness.
On the day of Jimmy’s baptism more than 25 years ago, I confess I looked at him and wondered how much he really believed. There were so many social reasons for him to convert. Many of his friends were Catholic. Even as a nonbeliever, he admired religions for the good they contributed to society. And his wife, a cradle Catholic, was thrilled by his conversion. Today I am ashamed of those doubts.
With this trial Jimmy will finally get his opportunity to speak. He would leave prison in a heartbeat and go home to his loving wife and children if he could. But not at the cost of truth.
The Good Book tells us that love endures all things. Which creates a dilemma for China and Hong Kong with this trial: The more suffering they inflict, the more powerful Jimmy Lai’s witness grows.
Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.
